Übermensch
by Rago Dragovian
Summary: Seymour fused himself with the remnants of Yu Yevon and fled into the multi-verse. As Death Incarnate, he seeks to bring the comfort of death to other worlds, but is stopped by people who exhibit qualities that remind him of an old philosophical novel that he loathed. Features Nietzschean Übermensch characters from Shin Megami Tensei, Tales of, Dragon Quest, and Disgaea.
1. Übermensch

_Disclaimer: I own none of these game series nor the philosophy._

* * *

 _Creating—that is the great salvation from suffering,_ _and life's alleviation. But for the creator to appear,_ _suffering itself is needed, and much transformation._ _Yea, much bitter dying must there be in your life, ye_ _creators! Thus are ye advocates and justifiers of all_ _perishableness._

 _For the creator himself to be the new-born child, he_ _must also be willing to be the child-bearer, and endure_ _the pangs of the child-bearer._

 _Verily, through a hundred souls went I my way, and_ _through a hundred cradles and birth-throes._ _  
_ _Many a farewell have I taken; I know the heart-breaking last hours._ _  
_ _But so willeth it my creating Will, my fate. Or, to tell_ _  
_ _you it more candidly: just such a fate—willeth my will._ _  
_ _All feeling suffereth in me, and is in prison: but my_ _  
_ _willing ever cometh to me as mine emancipator and comforter._ _  
_ _Willing emancipateth: that is the true doctrine of will_ _  
_ _and emancipation—so teacheth you Zarathustra._

 _No longer willing, and no longer valuing, and no longer_ _  
_ _creating! Ah, that that great debility may ever be far_ _from me!_ _  
_ _And also in discerning do I feel only my will's procreating and evolving delight;_ _  
_ _and if there be innocence in my_ _knowledge, it is because there is will to procreation in it._ _  
_ _Away from God and Gods did this will allure me; what_ _  
_ _would there be to create if there were—Gods!_ _  
_ _But to man doth it ever impel me anew, my fervent_ _  
_ _creative will; thus impelleth it the hammer to the stone._ _  
_ _Ah, ye men, within the stone slumbereth an image for_ _  
_ _me, the image of my visions! Ah, that it should slumber_ _  
_ _in the hardest, ugliest stone!_

 _Now rageth my hammer ruthlessly against its prison._ _  
_ _From the stone fly the fragments: what's that to me?_ _  
_ _I will complete it: for a shadow came unto me—the_ _  
_ _stillest and lightest of all things once came unto me!_ _  
_ _The beauty of the Superman came unto me as a shadow._ _  
_ _Ah, my brethren! Of what account now are—the Gods to_ _  
_ _me!—_ _Thus spake Zarathustra, page 85- 86, Commons edition._

* * *

Seymour snorted as he tossed the book. It smashed against a wall and broke into pieces. The individual pages scattering on the ground from the cracked binder.

 _What foolhardy sentiment_

He swiftly made his way out of the room. The casual distraction had annoyed him.

 _Preparations for a great harvest shall be made. This world will finally embrace sweet death as prophecized._

* * *

 _Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea._

 _Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: its own will, willeth now the spirit; his own world winneth the world's outcast._

 _Three metamorphoses of the spirit have I designated to you: how the spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.— Thus spake Zarathustra._

"But why?!" snarled Seymour, as another sword swipe slashed into his very core and began to destroy his connection to the new world. "You - you're going against prophecy! The very design of your own world! For what purpose do you fight against the decree of God Himself?! Why do you not see that I am saving humanity from suffering?!"

"I've fought to choose my path, regardless of the Score, before I met you and I'll do it again now," said the red-haired man, his green eyes gleaming with defiance. "As for the purpose? There is none. I'll tell you the same thing that I said to my former Master."

Seymour shrieked in pain as he shot the faux-human with an utterly loathsome glare. _A purposeless life is the type that should be most willing to embrace the comfort of death!_

"For my own existence, I will _not_ lose," said the Scion of Lorelei's power. He used his very aura to blast away at Seymour's remaining body mass, "and now, you die!"

Seymour felt the excruciating pain as the 7th fonon blasted into his very core and erased him from the plane of existence. In death, he heard the faux-human's final words of farewell.

"Master Van told me that I had gained impudent wisdom, maybe he's right, but I stopped caring what he thought of me at that point. Once, the whole world wanted me to die, but I persevered. You really cannot rely on anyone to tell you what the right path is, you have to find it yourself and force yourself to choose." said Luke fon Fabre, "It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It doesn't matter if anyone accepts me or not, because here I am. Life is enough for me and life is always worth fighting for."

* * *

 _"THE HIGHER ITS TYPE, always the seldomer doth a thing succeed._

 _Ye higher men here, have ye not all—been failures?_

 _Be of good cheer; what doth it matter? How much is still possible! Learn to laugh at yourselves, as ye ought to laugh!_

 _What wonder even that ye have failed and only half-succeeded, ye half-shattered ones!_

 _Doth not—man's future strive and struggle in you? Man's furthest, profoundest, star-highest issues, his prodigious powers—do not all these foam through one another in your vessel? What wonder that many a vessel shattereth! Learn to laugh at yourselves, as ye ought to laugh!_

 _Ye higher men, Oh, how much is still possible! And verily, how much hath already succeeded! How rich is this earth in small, good, perfect things, in well constituted things! Set around you small, good, perfect things, ye higher men. Their golden maturity healeth the heart. The perfect teacheth one to hope._ " _\- Thus spake Zarathustra._

"H-how?!" cried Seymour, as another slash of the damned metallic sword skewered his body, "how can a mere human being be this strong?! How can you not embrace the comfort of death?! Hasn't your life been nothing but pain, sorrow, and lamentable suffering?!"

"What would you know of my life?" said the man with the purple turban, his brown skin gleamed with sweat and adrenaline. His black eyes gazed at Seymour with an unflinching visage. "If you read-up on my life then you should know that -"

He cut through Seymour's body like butter. Seymour howled in pain as the critical hit cut another appendage off of his monstrous form. _WHY?! How can a single man not be broken, like me? He's faced so much . . . doesn't he wish for the comfortable embrace of death? Doesn't he wish for eternal sleep? Doesn't he long to be with his parents?!_

"- no matter what obstacle in my path, no matter how lengthy my suffering, no matter how painful my past, and no matter how much time stands still -"

He hacked another of Seymour's limbs off. Seymour hissed and tried to run but the King of Gotha sent a whirlwind spell at him and sent his body careening into the sky before being slammed harshly onto the ground. Seymour tried to ignore the touch of vertigo as the Loftinian landed another critical hit on his body.

"- I refuse to ever let that suffering define me! I refuse to allow myself to give up on my life! I refuse to see myself as a tragedy! I will endure, I will suffer more than ever, and I will overcome these feelings of self-hate, self-blame, anguish, loss, and aversion to achieve what I want in life."

"What?! How could you possibly be that stubborn?!" shouted Seymour, "What could be worth so much tragedy?!"

"My life satisfaction!" said the young hero, hitting Seymour with the killing blow. "Although I have suffered mercilessly, I have also been the result of my own choices. I have a loving wife, loving children, loving pets, a dear friend, a Kingdom that I chose to take the mantle of by becoming King, and an adoring public that follows my decrees. Indeed, I've suffered mercilessly, but I've used that experience and shaped that suffering into achieving my deepest desires. I define my own life!"

Seymour felt his link to the world slowly close and his essence was removed from the planet that he wished to bring death upon. He heard one last line before he knew no more and oblivion took hold of his mind.

"If I had to suffer through all of my mistakes and my choices, with nothing having changed, then I would gladly relive my life all over again. Eternally, if possible. My worst and best moments in life make me who I am. My life is worth suffering for!"

* * *

 _Unspoken and unrealised hath my highest hope remained!_

 _And there have perished for me all the visions_ _and consolations of my youth!_ _  
_ _How did I ever bear it? How did I survive and surmount_ _  
_ _such wounds? How did my soul rise again out of those_ _sepulchres?_ _  
_ _Yea, something invulnerable, unburiable is with me,_ _something that would rend rocks asunder:_ _it is called_ _ **my**_ _ **will**_ _._

 _Silently doth it proceed, and unchanged throughout_ _the years._ _  
_ _Its course will it go upon my feet, mine old Will; hard_ _of heart is its nature and invulnerable._ _  
_ _Invulnerable am I only in my heel. Ever livest thou_ _there, and art like thyself, thou most patient one!_

 _Ever_ _hast thou burst all shackles of the tomb!_ _  
_ _In thee still liveth also the unrealisedness of my youth;_ _and as life and youth sittest thou here hopeful on the_ _yellow ruins of graves._ _  
_ _Yea, thou art still for me the demolisher of all graves:_ _  
_ _Hail to thee, my Will! And only where there are graves are_ _there resurrections.—_ _Thus sang Zarathustra, page 108_

Seymour entered a world without time. He felt reassured. _Clearly, this world must want my salvation from sufferng . . ._

He stopped as he spotted a shirtless young man with shaman-like tattoos, gleaming silver eyes that changed to shades of yellow and red, and spiky cone-shaped black horn jutting out of the back of his neck.

Seymour shuddered and felt fear vibrate through his body as the young man gazed directly into his eyes. Seymour felt a sense of foreboding as he detected malice, destruction, and a firm desire to selfishly cling to life waft over him in waves. He choked and then dry heaved as wave after wave of the young man's demonic essence could be felt from such a startlingly lengthy distance.

"Get lost," said the Demi-fiend, his eyes boring into Seymour's own. Seymour flinched and shuddered once more as those eyes held a uniqueness that he couldn't possibly fathom. "You and your pathetic goals aren't welcome in the cosmic war for life itself."

Seymour channeled his most potent and dangerous magicks as the Demi-fiend stared impassively. Seymour killed himself and shut himself out of the connection with the estranged world. He heard the demons behind the young man fill the area with uproarious laughter.

"To suffer is to live, it is suffering that brings the profoundest joys in life. Pain, regret, shame, misery, depression, and hate; to endure all of that is to endure the happiness of life. For only through self-surpassing, do we truly gain the greatest life satisfaction."

Seymour wanted to scream as those words were carved into his subconscious mind by the Chaos Lord.

* * *

 _Injustice and filth cast they at the lonesome one: but, my brother, if thou wouldst be a star, thou must shine for them none the less on that account!_

 _And be on thy guard against the good and just! They would fain crucify those who devise their own virtue— they hate the lonesome ones._

 _Be on thy guard, also, against holy simplicity! All is unholy to it that is not simple; fain, likewise, would it play with the fire—of the fagot and stake._

 _And be on thy guard, also, against the assaults of thy love! Too readily doth the recluse reach his hand to any one who meeteth him. To many a one mayest thou not give thy hand, but only thy paw; and I wish thy paw also to have claws._

 _But the worst enemy thou canst meet, wilt thou thyself always be; thou waylayest thyself in caverns and forests. Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way to thyself! And past thyself and thy seven devils leadeth thy way! A heretic wilt thou be to thyself, and a wizard and a sooth-sayer, and a fool, and a doubter, and a reprobate, and a villain._

 _Ready must thou be to burn thyself in thine own flame; how couldst thou become new if thou have not first become ashes!_

 _Thou lonesome one, thou goest the way of the creating one: a God wilt thou create for thyself out of thy seven devils! - Thus spake Zarathustra_

Seymour laughed. _At last! If this had been another failure, then I would have permanently been extinguished from existence. But now, now I can . . .!_

"I am not giving up," said the vampire, he pulled his cape towards himself before enthusiastically parting his cape-wings in every direction and splaying his arms forth. "I shall keep my promise, whatever it takes!"

"Mr. Vampire! Please, consider taking my blood!" cried the Angel. Seymour sneered. _Angels are suppose to remain pure. They're not suppose to be romantically involved!_ "I . . . I absolutely won't allow you to die! I don't care how many rules I break; I'll shove it down your throat, if the situation calls for it."

The vampire chuckled. "Thank you for the kind words, Artina. Worry not, I was just having a warm up. I am in no legitimate danger."

Artina's posture relaxed. She smiled at the vampire. Seymour scoffed. _What an arrogant fool!_

"Very well, I'll tend to Fenrich's wounds then," said Artina, using a healing spell on the bruised and groaning werewolf. Artina sneered back at Seymour. "You had me worried for a moment, I'm glad you're not a real threat."

"Are you deluded enough to actually believe him?" said Seymour, he laughed. "Such a tragic farce, you must be stupid to believe such boasts."

"Oh my, my, you don't know, do you? I feel a tad sorry for you." said Artina, she giggled. Seymour scowled at her. He was rewarded with a peculiarly predatory smile from the angel. "You're fighting Tyrant Valvatorez."

"Who?"

Seymour was about to say more when a thick layer of darkness enveloped the vampire and streaks of darkness blasted across various swathes of the area. Seymour was forced to dodge one such dark blast. Once they dissipated, a much leaner Valvatorez stood in front of Seymour.

Tyrant Valvatorez moved his hands in front of him. "Behold true power!"

A deeper darkness flowed in a hurricane-like wave around Valvatorez until a monstrous bat-like demon emerged from the darkness. Seymour gaped as Valvatorez revealed his true Demon Emperor form. Once the screeching wave hit the grounds to the side of Seymour, he realized it was over. The waves of demonic energy hit him just as the Demon Emperor's own burst of demonic power slammed into his body, causing his body to lurch and snap in a multitude of places all at once. Seymour's body became awash from a cacophony of sounds, unfettered demonic power, and intense pressure-pointed pain across the entirety of his monstrous form.

He evaporated into non-existence before his torn and bloody carcass hit the ground. The Tyrant's last words were the last that he would ever hear in any plane of existence.

"You thought you could kill me? Don't fuck with me! Only someone who has endured the weight of immense suffering; who has grown in the self-reflection of their own pain and matured from their suffering by being forthright with themselves about their own inadequacies and shame could hope to match me! Only a person who is working to resolve their own behavior through self-imposed regulation can hope to kill me!" Seymour heard the Tyrant say, "You, a being who gave up on their own life, who threw it all away, and perceives life as a painful nausea could never be able to kill or defeat me. Your nihilistic perception implicitly means never allowing yourself any dreams or expectations; how can such a state of mind and behavior ever be a threat to a proud and noble demon like me?"

Idly, Seymour recalled the only part of the philosophical novel that he liked but realized just how his own choices led to making his life a tragicomedy. Seymour knew and became no more.

* * *

 _T_ _HERE ARE PREACHERS_ _of death: and the earth is full of those to whom desistance from life must be preached. Full is the earth of the superfluous; marred is life by the many-too-many. May they be decoyed out of this life by the "life eternal"! "The yellow ones": so are called the preachers of death, or "the black ones." But I will show them unto you in other colours besides. There are the terrible ones who carry about in themselves the beast of prey, and have no choice except lusts or self-laceration. And even their lusts are self-laceration._

 _They have not yet become men, those terrible ones: may they preach desistance from life, and pass away themselves! There are the spiritually consumptive ones: hardly are they born when they begin to die, and long for doctrines of lassitude and renunciation. They would fain be dead, and we should approve of their wish! Let us beware of awakening those dead ones, and of damaging those living coffins! They meet an invalid, or an old man, or a corpse—and immediately they say: "Life is refuted!"_

 _But they only are refuted, and their eye, which seeth only one aspect of existence. Shrouded in thick melancholy, and eager for the little casualties that bring death: thus do they wait, and clench their teeth. Or else, they grasp at sweetmeats, and mock at their childishness thereby: they cling to their straw of life, and mock at their still clinging to it. Their wisdom speaketh thus: "A fool, he who remaineth alive; but so far are we fools! And that is the foolishest thing in life!"_

" _Life is only suffering": so say others, and lie not. Then see to it that ye cease! See to it that the life ceaseth which is only suffering! And let this be the teaching of your virtue: "Thou shalt slay thyself! Thou shalt steal away from thyself!"— "Lust is sin,"—so say some who preach death—"let us go apart and beget no children!" "Giving birth is troublesome,"—say others—"why still give birth? One beareth only the unfortunate!" And they also are preachers of death. "Pity is necessary,"—so saith a third party. "Take what I have! Take what I am! So much less doth life bind me!" Were they consistently pitiful, then would they make their neighbours sick of life. To be wicked—that would be their true goodness. But they want to be rid of life; what care they if they bind others still faster with their chains and gifts!— And ye also, to whom life is rough labour and disquiet, are ye not very tired of life? Are ye not very ripe for the sermon of death?_

 _All ye to whom rough labour is dear, and the rapid, new, and strange—ye put up with yourselves badly; your diligence is flight, and the will to self-forgetfulness. If ye believed more in life, then would ye devote yourselves less to the momentary. But for waiting, ye have not enough of capacity in you—nor even for idling! Everywhere resoundeth the voices of those who preach death; and the earth is full of those to whom death hath to be preached. Or "life eternal"; it is all the same to me—if only they pass away quickly!— Thus spake Zarathustra_


	2. Extra: Nihilism v Life-Affirmation

_Art thou the victorious one, the self-conqueror, the ruler of thy passions, the master of thy virtues? Thus do I ask thee._

 _Or doth the animal speak in thy wish, and necessity? Or isolation? Or discord in thee?_

 _I would have thy victory and freedom long for a child. Living monuments shalt thou build to thy victory and emancipation._

 _Beyond thyself shalt thou build. But first of all must thou be built thyself, rectangular in body and soul._

 _Not only onward shalt thou propagate thyself, but upward! For that purpose may the garden of marriage help thee!_

 _A higher body shalt thou create, a first movement, a spontaneously rolling wheel—a creating one shalt thou create._ \- Thus Spake; Zarathustra, page 72.

* * *

"Yes . . . yes . . ." gushed Seymour, as he looked up from his knees at the White spectres before him. The aggregate sentience of humanity itself. "I wish to bring salvation! To free humanity of this meaningless suffering! Yes, together we shall - !"

They vanished. A thick darkness replaced the monochrome forest and streams of blood flowed around aimlessly from the dark void that looked like streaks of blood flowing across aimlessly around borderless darkness. Seymour screamed aloud. "NO! NO! COME BACK! RETURN TO ME AT ONCE! SALVATION! MY SALVATION! THE SALVATION OF ALL EXISTENCE! COME BACK! _Please_ . . . !"

Tears flowed down his cheeks and Seymour heard a high, cruel yet melodic laughter from behind him. Seymour rose from his feet and turned around to glare at the intruder. A woman in a black business suit, black gloves, and black high-heeled shoes. Her face was covered in a black veil that had a rose pattern which - upon careful inspection - was shaped like a pair of eyes glaring hatefully at him. Her rosy lips moved upward into a sneer and she placed one of her hands under her chin in a fist with her other arm holding the weight. Seymour could practically feel the malevolence and disdain exuding from the mysterious woman.

"Who are you?!" snapped Seymour, losing all his patience. His fingers balled to fists and his bloodshot eyes glared at the mystery woman and her patronizing body posture. "You best answer, or so help me, you shall suffer for ruining my chance to share the bliss of salvation!"

The woman shook her head and seemed to stifle a chuckle. Her posture remained at ease. She dropped her hands to her sides and smiled at him in a manner reminiscent of a predator sizing up her prey. Seymour felt a shudder as the woman's relaxed posture made his battle instincts shriek of oncoming suffering.

"Well, are you mute, or simply daft?!" shouted Seymour, spittle flying from his mouth. His body quaked as he readied to attack. "Answer me!"

"You sad, unfortunate little creature," said the Lady in Black, her pearly white teeth gleamed in the darkness. "if you must know, I have a diverse amount of names; they're so multifarious that I'm bestowed new names by every successive generation of humanity in all possible worlds in which I exist. For every culture of all worlds that I am a part of, I have a name in each."

"You sound quite full of yourself!" said Seymour laughing, "perhaps you should enlighten me on your so-called names?! I'm all ears."

The Lady in Black sighed softly and shrugged. "I am called Danu by the ancient Irish and the ancient Hindus, the primordial goddess and Asura of life affirmation and primordial waters. I am called Black Maria or Black Madonna by several denominations of Christians. A divine mother representing the triumph of motherhood and true love. I am referred to as the Phantom Queen, the Great Queen, or The Morrigan by denominations of Wiccans and the ancient Irish, Scottish, and many others. I was also called Anann, Fea, and Badb Catha. Known as the Goddess who guards death, brings death to famed people, forms prophecies and cherishes sovereignty, and feared for the power of creating illusions. To the ancient Hawaiians, I am the spiteful but esteemed mother goddess of fire, Madame Pele. To certain denominations of Native Americans, I am known to be respectively the spirits and goddesses; Anog Ite known as the two-faced woman, Angwusnasomtaka, known as the Crow Mother, Estsanatlehi, the Great Mother Goddess of Change, and Face or Lone Bird, the moon spirit. To the Greeks, I was known as Chaos, the primordial goddess of the abyss, air, and formlessness; Bendis, the Thracian goddess of horses and nightly candle ceremonies, and Asteria, the goddess of fallen stars and nightly divination. To the Romans, I was the triple Goddess, Diana. I am all of these aspects of myself and so much more than them. I am the Great Mother Goddess; the Eternal Goddess. Yet, I do not have a true name."

"What pretentiousness!" said Seymour, the Lady in Black's lips twitched upward. "You're granted many titles but they mean little to me! Women are weak, simple creatures easily manipulated by their lack of manly honor and their hyper-sensitivity to their emotions!"

The Lady in Black folded her arms and then moved one of her arms to her face. She lightly tapped a cheek with her index finger. "Are you . . . truly that stupid?"

Seymour bristled at her question. _Wretched shrew! How dare she insult me!_

"I am a tad astonished by you, I truly never imagined that I would meet a creature that was more pathetic than Aradia. Yet, here you are, the culmination of all that is pitiful about humanity wrapped into a Frankenstein that exhibits all of humanity's deepest self-contradictions." said the Lady in Black, her rosy lips forming a smile. She giggled in an eerily chipper tone that contrasted with her morbid appearance. Seymour gnashed his teeth as his ire surged from the mysterious woman's behavior. "Do you understand why you failed in each successive attempt at instilling your nihilistic values upon those worlds? Do you know why you cannot overcome such willpower?"

"Shut up!" shouted Seymour, spittle flying from his mouth once more, his eyes flashed. "I'll not hear more condescending remarks from a mere woman, however esteemed her title! Shut your mouth already! What would you know of my pain?! Stop mocking what your gender is too inferior to understand!"

The Lady in Black threw her head back and laughed. The pitch was loud enough to echo through the darkness; her laughter was colder yet evermore melodic, reaching a crescendo and needling into Seymour's mind. Seymour flushed and growled loudly as his face contorted. He transformed into his monstrous form and boldly flew towards the mocking and beautiful cackles. As he was upon her, he reared back one of his massive hands, his massive body tensed and ready to physically pummel the Lady in Black.

In one fell swoop, the Lady in Black was mysteriously in front of him. His eyes widened and his mouth hung agape. He could see her red lips move upward into another sneer as she slapped his statuesque face with the back of her hand in an overtly teasing manner. The soft backhanded smack sent him careening, his body lurched and smashed onto the ground. It continued to smash onto the ground while moving back into the air and continuing in a pattern similar to a slinky. Large pools of his blood oozed in his wake and he was forcefully knocked back into his weaker human-like form and his broken body finally settled upon the ground on his back while he was gasping for breath. He coughed out his own blood as sharp pain coursed throughout his swollen and battered body.

Seymour felt pressure on his windpipe as a bottom of a black, high-heeled shoe slammed down his neck. Seymour's bloodshot eyes widened and his body began to spasm feebly from the lack of ability to breathe. He gurgled and spat out spatters of blood that fell back on his face. He tried to push the heel off by turning his body but the heel remained unmoved from his throat. It felt as if a pillar stronger than stone was forcibly pressing down upon his neck. He slapped his hands on the woman that wore the affluent high heels but the leg wouldn't budge in the slightest.

The rose-patterned veil with the devilish eyes looked down upon him. Her rosy and proud smile basking in schadenfreude. "Allow me to correct one of your misconceptions. It is not the physical act of my heel crushing your throat that is harming you. After all, you're a bodiless spirit that ekes out an existence by manifesting yourself in a material or immaterial plane. What is hurting you is my overwhelming power, positioned towards you to exude merciless torture upon your broken, pathetic soul. You cannot 'breath' so long as I will you to suffer. Your existence is in a terminal state of affairs because you have no will of your own."

Seymour let out a gurgling sound and coughed out more blood. The blood spattered upon his face and stung his skin. His skin began to burn and itch causing Seymour to repeat his incoherent choking and blood vomiting.

"Do you think me cruel? Evil, perhaps?" said the Lady in Black, the rose-pattern eyes boring into his very soul. He squirmed and spat out more blood that fell and burned his skin as if they were hot coals. "This is all your own doing. I am a teacher and guide to those who seek my console. I fulfill their yearning for knowledge by telling them all they wish to know. This act of violence is the knowledge you craved and dreamed of; you didn't wish to live, you wanted to bring about a permanent non-existence. You hid your self-contempt and psychopathic tendencies under this belief that, if you couldn't attain complete non-existence, then you would act as it's avatar in order to prove yourself to be a champion of the most innocent of virtues. You were and still are insane. You view your own pathological need to commit genocide of all living existence as a form of holy war. Your own crusade against the supposed evils of living life. You are too inept and incorrigible to even understand why your beliefs are downright stupid because you see no value in life itself."

The Lady in Black shook her head slightly and sighed as Seymour continued to suffocate. "You will never understand because you don't wish to reconsider your harebrained beliefs. You are the epitome of nihilism; not because you saw the nihilism and endured the lessons. To view the wrongfulness of the world; genocide, torture, mass murder, child murder, rape, and so many more atrocities is a skill that few are ever willing to gaze upon with both empathy and rationality. The vast majority, the weak, glance upon the suffering and say life is refuted and go back to living in a self-made box to keep their distance with vague utterances of pity without ever trying to make a meaningful existence out of their vicarious suffering or helping others surpass their own legitimate suffering. No, you are nihilism itself because you - unlike those who defeated or instilled fear into you - allowed the nihilism to define you. You are part of the group that says because such atrocities exist, there is no helping human nature, life is thus intolerable, and the only cure is awaiting an afterlife because all of the wrongness must have a happy ending after an apparent gateway beyond death itself. Often, this pity with the living extends to themselves in self-reverence; their own self-pity seen as deep and meaningful to them because they define themselves through their failure. You try to self-justify your own atrocities under the witless argument that there is an intrinsic evil within humanity that causes the violence to be a form of fate instead of your own purposeful actions reinforcing a cycle of violence and hate. To appease your own tension, you insist on self-mockery and misanthropy to ease any quandaries you have with your own cruelty. You embody the worst of humanity."

Silence descended upon the pitch-black abyss around them, except for Seymour's occasional hisses and stifled mewling. The blood gushed all over his face and continued to scorch his skin like acid. Some of the blood had already burned through one of his eye sockets.

"As harsh and tragic as it is, tragedy occurs in life whether through a result of choice or happenstance. How you react to tragedy shapes you into becoming what you truly are. You either allow it to drown you in unmitigated suffering or find meaning in tragedy to become your higher self. In the unvarnished reality of indifference, that is what separates the weak and the strong," said the Lady in Black. "It is different for each individual; finding meaning in one's suffering is a personal ordeal, after all. Once a person forces themselves to face their inner suffering and the indifference of the outside world, they can begin to find meaning from their suffering. The red-haired young man gained a sense of self out of his suffering, the Tyrant Vampire regained self-trust and the motive to correct all that he viewed as necessary to change, the Loftinian grew a sense of purpose and a self-perpetuating desire for self-empowerment, and as for the Chaos Lord?"

Seymour tried to snarl but he was drowned out by choking on his own blood. The Lady in Black shot him a wry smile before gazing at the darkness that she had created.

"He obtained all of the above and instilled himself with new values from his harsh experiences. Values created by his own will alone; his perseverance and his resolve to spread those values made him the most powerful demon of Chaos." said the Lady in Black, a loving smile on her ominous visage. She was gazing beyond the pitch-black abyss in fascination. "To watch him struggle, fall, cry out in pain from injury and blood loss, suffer, stand back up to face his enemies, grow firmer, stand resolute, become coarser in his regard for others, build himself up through his own choices, fight to live, thrive over the others through his own power, and surpass himself in his gradual self-overcoming was an unfathomable delight for Lucifer and I. The Black Hope that we demons of Chaos had longed for, the one I had personally yearned for with acute interest. He fulfilled the ordeals and proved that he could be my strength . . . my _equal_ in all matters. Thus, he became the Lord of Chaos, a position higher than Demon Lord, and I accepted him as my King. In turn, I willingly became his Queen, right before we took each other to bed."

The last image Seymour ever saw with his remaining good eye was the beautiful and sincere smile on the Lady in Black's lips. Blood splat into his other eye and Seymour became permanently blind.

"You've leeched off the power of others for far too long," said the Lady in Black as she looked down and nodded to herself. "The White had hoped to use you for their own designs and kept your spirit from completely fading out of existence, but I will no longer tolerate the attempts of a parasite to leech off power greater than his own to bring about a pathetic resolution. Your answer to life was simply to justify your self-hate and arrogance.

"Every single person who vanquished you had felt the same pain, hate, and self-loathing but the difference was that you allowed yourself to be defined by your own failings and suffering. All of them eventually decided to use their failings as lessons to learn from, instead of defining them as permanent inadequacies that couldn't be changed. They used their failings to work harder; they gained meaning and purpose from their suffering. Death became a comfortable option for you, death was a closed door for them because they decided to think over their problems and find options they could do to make their own lives better. Little by little, over the course of their many sufferings and failings, they decided what they wanted and accomplished their self-made goals to finally become what you saw." said the Lady in Black, "They said _Yes to life_ when you said no. Their goals became self-perpetuating, a first movement, advocating their own will and fully realized it wasn't arrogant to shape their own realities as they saw fit. Alas, these words are lost on you. You never will understand because you can never value life. You created your own reality and this is where it has led you. That is the truth of all human existence to a relative extent. Perish, you microbe, with the knowledge that life's burdens bring forth the finest and worst in humanity depending upon their own sense of purpose and acquisition of personal power."

Before Seymour was permanently vaporized from existence, her words were ingrained into his subconscious mind.

The Lady in Black whispered her final words. "What you lacked and what they grew to have was _life-affirmation through suffering_. Shutting the door to suicide, learning from the anguish and pain, taking on the stress of the everyday burdens, and paving your own answer to life's challenges to reach a goal with your own meaning and purpose. If you define yourself as death incarnate and actually believe such a choice is deep and meaningful, then you never really wanted to surpass the chasm to reach their heights of power. You only wanted this conclusion . . . so I shall now fulfill your deepest desire."

Seymour knew no more. His body permanently dissipating into nonexistence. Her high-heel clicked on the floor after the body was obliterated.

She took off the black veil over her face and let it fall to darkness. The Queen and Lady of Chaos straightened her posture and sedately traveled back through Labyrinth and to the Palace of Amala to reunite with the only one who equaled her power. The only one she bestowed the right to see her boundless visage.

* * *

 _All these heaviest things the load-bearing spirit taketh upon itself: and like the camel, which, when laden, hasteneth into the wilderness, so hasteneth the spirit into its wilderness._ _But in the loneliest wilderness happeneth the second metamorphosis: here the spirit becometh a lion; freedom will it capture, and lordship in its own wilderness._

 _Its last Lord it here seeketh: hostile will it be to him, and to its last God; for victory will it struggle with the great dragon._ _What is the great dragon which the spirit is no longer inclined to call Lord and God?_

 _"Thou-shalt," is the great dragon called. But the spirit of the lion saith, "I will."_

" _Thou-shalt," lieth in its path, sparkling with gold—a scale-covered beast; and on every scale glittereth golden,_ " _Thou shalt!"_

 _The values of a thousand years glitter on those scales, and thus speaketh the mightiest of all dragons: "All the values of things—glitter on me._ _All values have already been created, and all created values—do I represent. Verily, there shall be no 'I will' any more. Thus speaketh the dragon_

 _My brethren, wherefore is there need of the lion in the spirit? Why sufficeth not the beast of burden, which renounceth and is reverent?_

 _To create new values—that, even the lion cannot yet accomplish: but to create itself freedom for new creating—that can the might of the lion do._

 _To create itself freedom, and give a holy Nay even unto duty: for that, my brethren, there is need of the lion._ _To assume the right to new values—that is the most formidable assumption for a load-bearing and reverent spirit. Verily, unto such a spirit it is preying, and the work of a beast of prey._

 _As its holiest, it once loved "Thou-shalt": now is it forced to find illusion and arbitrariness even in the holiest things, that it may capture freedom from its love: the lion is needed for this capture._ _But tell me, my brethren, what the child can do, which even the lion could not do? Why hath the preying lion still to become a child?_

 _Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea._

 _Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: its own will, willeth now the spirit; his own world winneth the world's outcast. - Thus Spake;Zarathustra, pages 34-35_


End file.
